


you are just like an animal, you got a wild heart

by simplysweetperfection (tinydemons)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3464846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinydemons/pseuds/simplysweetperfection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa's life can be characterized into two parts: before Costia and after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are just like an animal, you got a wild heart

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. Just wanted to write a quick little thing before 2x15 fucks us up. Title comes from [Wild Animal](https://soundcloud.com/skylarfri/wild-animal) by Skylar Fri.

 

 

Lexa's life can be characterized into two parts: before Costia and after.

It's hard to remember before.

 

 

But she tries.

 

 

There is a girl, not yet fourteen. This girl is wild, vicious, with a fight in her heart and the grin of a wolf. She growls and spits and lets blood paint her cheeks red. This girl goes to war with scraped knees and sharpened teeth and lets men fall on her blade.

 _Heda_ , they whisper when she passes and turn away when she stumbles. _Heda, heda, heda_ , they chant when her soul sinks and settles in her chest, heavy and pressing. This girl wishes she could remember her past lives.

There is a girl, too old to name. A girl, _a girl_ , and her family lies in pieces.

Leksa, her dying sister says. Heda, her dead father said. She doesn't know which she'd rather be.

There is a girl - no. That's not right. There was a girl.

Lexa imagines she's dead like the rest of them.

 

 

They burn Costia piece by piece.

An ear comes first, a thumb, a braid. Lexa hopes. Then it's a hand, an eye, a tongue. Lexa wishes she could end Costia's agony herself.

The head comes last, half-rotted and screaming.

Lexa tears the Ice Nation to the ground.

 

 

Lexa's life can be characterized into two parts: before Costia and after.

She doesn't know how to remember before.

 

 

The map lies sprawled before her, clusters of trees marked in dark ink and a protruding rock in the center. Gustus hovers at her side ever silent. His presence is the smallest of reassurance as her generals argue before her.

"Heda, I ask that you let me take my best warriors and finish this. The Skaikru have killed enough of our own," Quint says, fists knocking against the table. The small pillars signifying the fence to the Skaikru's stronghold wobble from the force of it.

Indra growls in protest, her hand falling to the grip of her blade. "Do you not think Anya will return victorious?" she asks. "She knows better than to believe their lies of peace. She will return with the heads of their leaders on pikes, I guarantee it."

"You have much faith. Perhaps misguided," Quint says. Indra's jaw tightens as she takes a threatening step towards him. "I still think we should have killed them where they stood rather than go with this false declaration of unity."

"What is it you think Anya is doing now?"

"Playing peace with invaders," Quint grunts, angrily. Gustus shifts ever so slightly. Lexa watches the action, curious. "They have burned and tortured our people and refuse to leave our lands. Anya is not moving fast enough and the Maunon patrol closer to our borders. Our forces are too far spread for us to survive should any of them attack."

Tristan looks up then, brow furrowed. He says, "You question the commander?"

Gustus's hand twitches.

"Enough," Lexa finally says. Indra takes a step back, head inclined in a nod while her jaw still twitches with annoyance. Quint looks at Lexa for a moment before he warily repeats the nod, his shoulders still drawn tight with frustration. Lexa ignores the angered man, turning to Gustus instead. "Gustus, what says you?""

Her confidants head dips as he choses his words carefully. "Heda, Quint is right. We need to eliminate one front if we have any hope of engaging the reapers or the Maunon. And we need our forces at full strength if we are to enforce the coalition as well."

Lexa is slow to nod. She remembers the bodies of her people burnt to husks in the wake of the Skaikru's missiles from the sky. An entire village wiped from existence with the purple glow of the weapon. She shudders to think of the flesh melting off the bones of those unlucky enough to escape the fires.

"Where is Anya now?" Lexa asks, eyes flickering to the bridge that marks where the parley takes place.

"She is due back from the meeting with the Sky People," Indra informs, her eyes still trained on Quint.

Lexa knows there are two ways this could end. She supposes they are ready and Lexa will not accept defeat.

"The Skaikru shall have their war," she says.

 

 

Anya comes back with a bullet in her shoulder and a declaration of war at her lips. She talks of their golden leader, the one with a vicious poisoned tongue and empty promises. She tells Lexa of the weapons they hold, just like the mountain men; she tells of the warriors hidden in the grass who killed three of Anya's own; she tells of the Sky People and how they carve Lexa's land bloody.

Anya comes back with a battle cry and asks the Commander to rip the invaders from the roots.

Lexa obliges. She looks back to the map, nods. "Finish it."

Tear down the sky.

 

 

Lexa wonders if the Sky People bleed starlight. She wonders if their bones are filled with the pale of the moon and their eyes cry tears of sunlight.

Lexa wonders and imagines it might scorch her skin all the same.

 

 

Her people burn.

 

 

Not enough come back.

Her council waits, anticipating the message of victory, waiting for the trophy of war. _I brought down the sky for you_ , Lexa would say when the earth swallow what remains of the Skaikru. She imagines her people smearing the soot on their cheeks and claiming the ground and sky as their own.

Lexa imagines, but not enough come home.

The ones that return do so with half of their faces burnt away and tales of a ring of fire that took 300 souls from the ground. Not enough come back and even less survive the night.

Lexa thinks she can hear the screams in her head, even now.

 

 

Before Costia -

Who was she then? Lexa doesn't want to remember.

 

 

"Eighteen lay dead. Eighteen. Men, women, _children_. Heda, we cannot allow this offense to go unpunished."

Indra is rage, crying for blood and fire as the people lay slaughtered in her village. Lexa does not think she can give what Indra craves.

 

 

"Commander, I do not think it is wise to allow the Sky People to march on our camp."

The one called Marcus looks at Gustus warily, unable to decipher the hostility on foreign tongue. Lexa flicks her knife against the wooden armrest of her chair and does not look up. "Would you rather I walk to theirs?" she says, gouging out a sliver of wood.

Gustus grunts. "I would rather we kill them where they stand. Far too many are dead because of these invaders."

"And how well did that plan succeed last time?" Lexa asks. She swallows and she feels she can taste ash between her teeth.

There are two ways this could end.

 

 

Clarke kom Skaikru.

She has sunshine in her hair and a heart that bleeds for her people. She is young but strong, and Lexa thinks it would be a pity for her golden hair to be ruined by red.

"This is not a negotiation," she says, hoping this Sky girl will listen. The twelve clans stand behind her and this girl can only offer ghost stories of a mentor Lexa has already buried.

Lexa does not want to soil the sun in her hair, but -

 

 

There was a time when Lexa would lay in a bed of grass and try counting out the stars above. She was a little thing then, one who wanted to swallow up the light and present it to her people as an offering. _See what I can do_? she wished to say, _I can bring the stars down for you_. Costia was often there, kissing the moonlight from Lexa's skin and giving herself to Lexa until she could not tell where Costia started and she ended.

There was a time when Lexa traced the constellation of freckles across Costia's hips and found the stories of old in the shapes. Lexa remembers the ancients like a hallow in her chest, cruel indifferent beings, who took Costia back with one slice of steel. Lexa remembers the stars burning from the inside out and Costia's ashes between her fingers.

There was at time, there was a time, there was a time. Lexa does not think of then. Not anymore.

Lexa lets herself be cut from stone and armed with the promise of her people. She lets her bones fill with war and her mind fill with treaties. She commands her people to take down the sky and cries when they burn.

 _See what I can do_? she thinks as their bones crunch under her foot. She does not let it show, following the leader of the Skaikru.

Stones do not bleed, no matter how sharp the blade.

 

 

Lexa does not want to soil the sun in her hair, but -

Lexa will slit the throats of anyone trying to claim the ground as their own.

 _You lied_ , she says to the Skaikru girl and nods at Indra.

 

 

Clarke of the Sky People, the girl with sun in her hair and stars in her eyes, she pleads with Lexa, begs.

 _You do not know what you are asking_ , Lexa does not say when she tells Lexa to prove herself. _You cannot possibly understand my people's thirst and the chant of death in their lungs_. Eighteen souls lie dead in her village and Clarke has the nerve to beg the one responsible go free; the nerve to say Lexa has a choice.

Lexa frowns. That is wrong. The power of choice is one not so freely given, let alone to one as guilty as he.

The boy Clarke loves is strung up on a tree, awaiting the end of Lexa's blade, but this girl stands before her and offers herself in his place. Lexa does not blink as she searches Clarkes face, searches for the guilt Clarke claims.

"He did it for me," Clarke says, and there is a cry to her voice that Lexa remembers.

Lexa thinks of Costia's body, bloody and broken and missing, says, "Then he dies for you."

It is a cruel thing, forcing another to share her fate. Lexa wonders if Finn will still dance through her brain even after he is long past dead. She wonders if Clarke will ever figure how to drown her chest until none can see what awaits beneath its seas. Lexa wonders and wonders as the Sky girl looks to ground and swallows.

It is a cruel thing, but Lexa was born from cruel deeds.

She watches as Clarke cools and hardens before her, turning to steel as she accepts Finn's fate. Clarke looks to Lexa evenly. "Can I say goodbye?"

Lexa can see the press of emotion in her eyes, held back by a strong will that Lexa cannot help but admire. She thinks of Costia with her missing head and imagines her life at the end of Lexa's blade.

She nods.

Clarke of the Sky People, the girl with red on her skin and tears down her face, she walks to Finn but not all of her comes back.

 

 

"Yu gonplei ste odon."

The stars shine from Clarke's eyes when she blinks at the flames. Lexa feels something old clench in her chest.

She doesn't remember before but maybe, maybe.

 

 

Gustus convulses when the healer shoves fingers down his throat, forcing the bile to rise. Lexa stands away, watching the twitch in his large frame and clenches a hand tight around the end of her blade. They do not shake. She is not weak.

"Poison," he moans.

"Quiet, Gustus," she snaps. He vomits again, much to Lexa's relief.

The Sky People are still locked away in the subway while Gustus purges himself. It takes everything she has not to go down there and slaughter them all. _I believed you_ , she wants cry as blood paints her face _, I believed, I believed and you used me._

But something whispers in the back of her mind, something that sounds like Clarke's desperate cries.

 _You know this wasn't us_. Lexa thinks in another life she might believe the Sky girl. In a world that was not governed by blood and war, she might listen to the girl with sun in her hair and help her people finally find peace.

But now? Now, the Commander is not afforded the luxury of foolish beliefs.

 

 

 _Be strong_.

Gustus coughs, bloody.

She is stone, she is iron, she will not break, she will not -

 

 

Lexa is too old to remember her past lives.

She is glad.

 

 

Lexa does not know how many times she has died. Lexa is told how she perished in her last life, how the river clan sneaked in the night and stabbed her while she slept. Before that she had cracked her head on the rocks when she was still small; even further, her skull exploded from the force of the Maunon bullets. The council tells her deaths five times back, but before that Lexa cannot remember.

She doubts she will recall this death in her next life. The end at the hands of an ape cracking her ribcage open and smothering what it finds in the space. She wonders if this will cause her to laugh next time.

Perhaps. Or maybe the Mountain Men will have finally wiped her people from the planet and she will be forced to walk alone, time and time again as she laughs at her old deaths.

Will her spirit die if she has no one left to command?

Lexa is afraid to find out.

 

 

Clarke kom Skaikru, knows how to tear down mountains. She knows how level the ground and carve the earth until nothing remains but Clarke and her people. She knows how men look burnt down to bone and - _oh_. Lexa understands.

_She was born for this, same as me._

 

 

Lexa's life can be characterized into two parts: before Costia and after.

No, but -

 

 

"Clarke." An old panic clinches Lexa's chest as she struggles to breath through ash and smoke. There are screams in the distance and the trees are orange from the glow of fire. Lexa does not pay them mind as she grasps Clarke's shoulders and shakes. " _Clarke_."

Clarke blinks, the fog that has taken her lessening. "I could have warned them," she says. There is a tremble to her lip and tears collecting her eyes. Lexa looks over her shoulder once, the fire searing against her sight. Clarke continues, "I could have saved them."

Lexa breathes in destruction. Exhales, "If they see us they will strike again."

Clarke turns back to the leveled village. Lexa tightens her grip desperately. "Clarke. Victory stands on the back of sacrifice. You know that."

Her fingers tremble. Clarke cracks in front of her, anguish seeping from the crevices. Her wild heart bleeds and Lexa is helpless to stop it. Clarke breaks before her. So many. _So many_. How many have they killed? Five hundred and counting. Lexa thinks she wants to scream.

Clarke breaks and Lexa tries desperately to catch all of the pieces.

"I want the Mountain Men dead. All of them."

Lexa nods.

She will stand tall enough for the two of them.

 

 

Lexa wonders how many cuts she should make. Her people burn, her people scream, her people do not fight when she steps on their remains. Her back is lined with scars and the memories of all the people she has slaughtered.

She wonders how many incisions it will take before she bleeds out.

 

 

Lexa swallows, hardens.

She can't get the missile out of her head.

 

 

There are six things Lexa cares for:

  1. Her people, a proud fierce group who fight too long and love too hard. Born from the earth and blessed by the sky, they have carved their bones to knives, prepared to slit the throats of any who try to cage them. Lexa cannot imagine her life without their chants beating in her chest.
  2. Costia. Sweet, sweet Costia with her thick hair and deep smiles that makes Lexa's spine feel like it is cracking under the weight. Dear Costia, whose head still rolls around in Lexa's brain.
  3. Gustus, her silent confidant. He was the one to pull her up as her family lie slaughtered around her. He was the one who found her crying into her palms when Costia was fresh ash spread throughout the trees. He did not say a thing as he draped furs over her shoulders and let her mourn, hardening to stone. Gustus she misses so dearly, even as his blood stains her skin.
  4. Anya. The woman was cold and hard, but she helped Lexa find her voice, helped her scream back at the earth trying to swallow her whole. When her bones snapped and her soul cracked, Anya taught Lexa to fight past it until the world broke beside her.
  5. Lexa's blade, the one pressed to her palm by a mother who smeared blood down her face and said, "You will lead our people to great victory, Leksa." It is the blade that tore open the river clan when they tried to take her village. She leaves it tucked away in her tent nowadays, instead using the sword forged by the twelve clans as they accepted her peace.
  6. Clarke. This one scares her the most.



 

 

Not you. Not yet.

Lexa wants to remember.

She shouts and wears the words as her armor.

 

 

There is a girl, not yet nineteen. This girl is iron and heart, who fell from the heavens and clawed apart mountains. She smiles and Lexa imagines she could swallow the light it gives. _Mine_ , Lexa would say, keeping it tucked up in her chest, _this is mine_.

 _A child_ , the Skaikru whisper when this girl passes. _A child_ , but Lexa does not think they know the true meaning of the word. This girl is older than the metal that held them up in the sky, this girl is too young to remember.

There is a girl who does not let Lexa take from her, who burns Lexa's walls to ash.

Clarke, she calls herself. There is a girl - _Clarke_.

Lexa imagines the name, a prayer to the ancient beings.

 

 

Lexa is old.

She thinks Clarke is older.

 

 

 _My spirit was built from what was left of yours,_ Lexa whispers into the trees, the sin burning, _the bits and parts of you that you wished to cast away. I took them from you, gladly._

She is older than the bombs that poisoned the earth, turning its surface to a wasteland. She is beyond the reach of man, beyond time. Her soul is that of a commander and she cannot think of how old Clarke's soul must be, built from the parts that Lexa would not dare take.

 _How long have we been doing this dance? You in the sky and me on the ground, finally able to meet_.

Her chest beats with her people and her lungs fill with war and her veins sing. Clarke, _Clarke_.

 _How old are we_?

 

 

Lexa remembers.

 

 


End file.
